Monday, July 20, 2009

Pissed Off

Day 495

I was up early because I wanted to beat the crowds, but by the time I had eaten and showered it was pouring down rain. I ended up going back to sleep until it stopped. Around ten the rain let up and I headed out to the Peter and Paul fortress. This was the oldest building in St. Petersburg, built in 1703. It was meant to protect the city from Sweden, but never saw any action.

Right in the middle is the SS Peter and Paul cathedral. It was really amazing. Five of the last Romanov's are buried here. What's weird is that they didn't say where the most recently found remains are. I wonder if they are still testing them. There were plaques for the missing children on the walls along with everyone else. The place was packed. When I finally got a shot at Peter the Greats tomb I was pushed aside by a French language guide. I held my ground though. I didn't wait patiently for the last group to move just to wait for this one as well. I wanted that picture along with a minute with my favorite royal.

When I was done with the cathedral I went looking for the other museums included in my ticket. The first one I found was on movie and theater costumes. I don't know why but they had one of Elizabeth Taylor's gowns as well. Next up was the rather boring space museum. It wasn't crowded. I then found a Peter the Great statue with an oddly small head. Next up were some semi interesting history museums on the town and the fortress itself. The last stop was the prison museum. It was very much like every old prison I've been too. Some of the prisoner stories were interesting though.

After a late lunch I hung out at the hostel until dinner time. After dinner I spent a bit of time at the internet cafe before heading back. I had an early day coming up so I wanted to get to sleep early. This was easier said than done. The mossies were really bad and I could feel myself being eaten alive and hear them in my ears. There were a lot of drunk people coming and going all night as well.

Around three am something woke me up. The Canadian guy in my room was about 2 feet to the right of my bed, facing away from me. He then proceeded to pee on the floor and a bit on the empty bed two beds away from me. This also woke up the girl sleeping in the bed across from mine. I said rather loudly that that wasn't the toilet, but he ignored me. When he was done he then tried to lay in the bed he had just peed on, but got frustrated when he couldn't find the sheets (there were none) and went back to his own bed. At this point the English girl and I were really giggling and went downstairs to ask for some towels to throw on top of it.

The next day the Canadian apologized, he seemed really embarrassed and had no memory of it happening. I told him that it wasn't a big deal, but that it would be making it into my blog, he said that that was fair enough and here it is.